


Matchmaker

by Fudgyokra



Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Greg and Mabel Get Crafty, Humor, M/M, Matchmaking, Mentioned Soos/Melody, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Matchmaking Duo, The Power Of Mabel, Wirt is a Geek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: When Wirt accidentally hints that he has a crush, Mabel insists on arranging a date for him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Wirt and Greg live in Gravity Falls and are among the friends that the Pines made their first summer in town. Twins are 15 going on 16, Wirt is 16 and Greg is 11.

Sometimes Gravity Falls felt more like home than home did. Every time the bus pulled up to the stop and the Pines twins got to see their friends and great uncles again, it was a fond celebration. Even though it was their third consecutive summer visiting, Stan and Ford had prepared the usual greeting party as if they hadn’t seen them in years, draping the front of the Mystery Shack with banners and ample balloons as though it were a truly grandiose event.

Soos and Melody greeted them at the door with the last of the evening’s welcome-back hugs and let them get settled into their room before the celebratory dinner was served. When that came to an end and their friends left for the night, each with their future hangout plans already cemented, Dipper and Mabel could finally sit down and play their annual game of catch-up with their great uncles.

“Y’know Soos and Melody are gettin’ married,” Stan said matter-of-factly, drawing a bout of excited clapping from Mabel and words of acknowledgement from Dipper.

“Yeah,” he said with a smile, “He texted us, like, the day he proposed.”

“Isn’t that awesome?” Mabel squealed, her eyes glittering. _Always a sucker for romance_ , Dipper thought with a mental eye roll. He guessed that she’d probably never grow out of that. He was happy about the engagement, of course, but not quite as excited as his sister.

“I lost money on that,” Stan said. “I swore it would never happen.”

Ford laughed. “You did no such thing,” he replied, then pretended to whisper aside to Dipper and Mabel. “He cried tears of joy when he found out.”

“That’s a load of horse-shit!” Stan said defensively.

“ _Stanley_ , the children!”

“They’re fifteen, ya nerd. They probably curse more than I do.”

“Does that mean I can say ‘fuck’ in front of you guys?” Mabel asked, steepling her fingers in front of her chin in a vain effort to appear serious. Dipper groaned; Ford gave a longsuffering sigh and Stan guffawed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Once the man managed to calm down, he rose from his chair and cast a glance down at his watch. “All right, Gutter Mouth, it’s time for me to clock out.” He put a hand on each of their heads, patting Dipper’s hat and ruffling Mabel’s hair on his way out of the room. “See you goofballs tomorrow.”

“Good night Grunkle Stan,” the younger twins echoed.

“You two ought to get some rest, too,” Ford suggested, prepared to retire to his own room for the night (whether or not it was to sleep was a mystery.) “I’m sure you have plenty planned for tomorrow and you could use the energy.”

“We have plenty of energy. We’re not as old and decrepit as you are,” Mabel retorted, flashing Ford a cheeky smile when he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, _ha_ ha,” he said with a fond smile. “Good night, kids.”

“Night,” they answered, once again in unison. When their uncle was out of sight they clambered up the stairs to their usual shared room, Mabel jumping at the opportunity to decorate and Dipper settling into bed to read. It was the same comfortable pattern they followed every year, each of them barreling into their summer routines with unmeasured excitement at what was to come of their vacation this time around.

//

“Diiiiiiiiipper!”

He jolted awake upon hearing his sister’s voice calling his name from downstairs. Groggy and minutely annoyed, he sat up in his bed and attempted to rub some life into his eyes. “ _What?_ ” he called back. He fished under his pillow for his cell phone and dragged it toward him on the sheets to check the time. It was almost noon, and it occurred to him that he had definitely turned his alarm off by accident.

“Wirt and Greg are here!”

At his sister’s answer he perked up and rose to get ready. Two minutes of teeth-brushing and a ten-minute-long foray into his disastrous dresser finally yielded a presentable Dipper Pines; one who was able to hurriedly snatch his glasses and hat from the end table and finally head down to meet the day’s company.

Greg was the first to greet him, since he’d sped toward him with arms open and practically knocked him over with a hug. He might have only been eleven years old but he bulky, and Dipper was, well, not.

“Hey, Greg,” he said once the kid had relinquished him from his hold. His eyes lifted to Greg’s step-brother, a close friend to him who he was closer to in terms of age and lankiness. “It’s nice to see you again, Wirt!” he said enthusiastically, extending his hand, palm up, for a high-five that Wirt returned with a toothy smile.

“Very nice to see you again,” the other boy said, then tipped his head toward Greg. “Sorry about him almost bowling you over. He did it to Mabel, too.”

Dipper scoffed and flapped a hand at him. “Hey, I can hold my own. I totally wasn’t gonna fall over or anything.” That was a blatant lie, but the other three graciously let him have it and said nothing. “So, ah, what’s the plan?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Oh, we didn’t really have one,” Wirt admitted a little sheepishly, “but I was thinking maybe we could go into town and—”

“Ooh! I know!” Greg interrupted with his usual brand of liveliness. “Let’s play tag!”

“Greg,” Wirt began flatly, “I think we’re a little old to be playing tag.”

“I think it sounds fun!” Mabel exclaimed as she clasped her hands. “Come on, you’re never too old for tag.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at Wirt, who shrugged and said, “All right, tag it is.”

The four of them were barely out the front door before Greg tapped his brother on the arm, declared him to be “it,” and sped off. Mabel and Dipper fled in the other direction with twin bouts of laughter, and so the game commenced. They played until they couldn’t bear the thought of running anymore.

“Loser gets drinks for everyone,” Mabel said smugly, her hands on her hips. “That means you, Dipper.”

“What? You can lose at tag?”

“You were the last person to be ‘it’ before we stopped the game,” Wirt explained with a cheeky smile. “And I would like a root beer, please.”

Mabel and Greg had a laugh at this while Dipper rolled his eyes and headed into the kitchen to grab everyone a drink. He reemerged juggling three cans of soda and a bottled water, the last of which he passed to Greg, whom he remembered wasn’t allowed to have carbonated drinks quite yet. He sat next to the boy on the porch, opposite Mabel and Wirt who sat cross-legged in the grass, already engaged in some sort of conversation wherein Wirt was waxing poetic about god knows what.

Dipper smiled at them until Greg’s insistent poking on his arm got his attention. “Did I ever tell you about the giant spider I caught last week?” When Dipper shook his head to the negative, Greg launched into a lengthy (and gross) tale involving a spider he’d caught who had laid sacs of eggs in his house.

“That’s so gross,” Dipper said with a half-laugh, half-snort. “But it’s also hilarious.”

Greg beamed. “Yeah, I think so too. Except I got in trouble for it.”

Dipper’s attention drifted back to Mabel, who was laughing at something Wirt said. Judging by his confused expression, whatever it was wasn’t supposed to have been funny. “You’re such a dork,” the girl said, prompting the confusion on Wirt’s face to transform into one of understanding.

“ _Oh_ ,” he said, eyes glancing skyward in a gesture of humorful relief. “Well, you know me: I have a poet’s heart.”

“You’re in a really good mood today, huh?” Mabel asked. Wirt agreed with a somewhat distrait nod, so Mabel geared up her best teasing voice and said, “All right, who’re you crushing on?”

She had not anticipated Wirt’s face to go pink up to his ears. On the tail end of a shocked gasp the girl tacked on a shriek, gaining the attention of the other two boys in the yard, much to Wirt’s chagrin. “No freakin’ way! You really do have a crush! Oh my god, tell me tell me tell me! Is it Candy? Is it Grenda? I can plan a date for you! It will be so fun!”

Wirt, dumbstruck, only sputtered in lieu of an answer. While he was in the process of forming a proper response, Dipper shook his head and assured him that Mabel did that sort of thing all the time. “You just have to bear with it.”

“But—” Wirt started, only to have Dipper shoot him a weary smile and interject.

“Just let her plan a date. It’ll appease her and then she’ll be out of your hair.”

Mabel stuck her tongue out at her brother but did not object. Grudgingly, Wirt agreed. Greg ardently volunteered his assistance, and with that the two of them sped inside to gather tools and begin planning the affair.

Dipper studied Wirt for a moment, then asked, tentative and curious, “So…is it Candy or Grenda?”

Wirt put his face in his hands and groaned. “Neither. I gotta go talk to her.”

Dipper gave him a silent salute on his way through the door. Once inside he followed the telltale path of heart-shaped confetti into Mabel and Dipper’s room, where the girl was presenting two different sketches to a thoughtful-looking Greg. “Oh, hey!” she exclaimed once she spotted Wirt. “Which one did you say it was? Candy or Grenda? I forgot already.”

Wirt, feeling weirdly guilty, told her the truth. “It’s, well—it’s neither of them, Mabel.” His eyes flickered to Greg for a second, then lowering his voice a little, he added, “Can I, ah, talk to you alone for a second, please?”

“Sure thing brother o’ mine,” Greg said, dutifully marching out of the room with a spray paint can of dubious origins in hand. Wirt shut the door behind him.

Mabel sized him up with squinted eyes. “It isn’t me, is it? Because you’re cool and all but I—”

“Uh, no,” he replied, voice almost cracking on the second syllable. “Funny—funny story, it’s actually, um…” His eyes betrayed him by sub-consciously glancing at the window, and that split second of movement sealed his fate for him.

“Oh my god,” Mabel said, disbelief painted on her face.

“I’m sorry!” he said automatically, a little panicked. He didn’t exactly know why he was apologizing. “It just sort of _happened_ and I know it’s a little crazy but we—”

“You’re in love with my brother!” the girl said, her voice much too loud for Wirt’s comfort. “This is awesome!”

“No! It isn’t awesome. It’s horrible.” Wirt frowned, an expression he found being mirrored back to him on Mabel’s previously joyous face.

“What? Why?”

“He definitely does not feel the same way about me.” He began rubbing the back of his left hand, a nervous habit he’d never managed to kick. “I—I don’t even know if Dipper likes guys.”

Mabel tapped her chin, then appeared to be struck with a pertinent thought. “His first kiss was with a guy.”

Wirt visibly bristled and regarded her with wide eyes. “Wait, really?”

“Well, it was really CPR,” was the response he got. He tried not to look annoyed.

“That’s not really the same thing,” he deadpanned.

Just outside of the room, Greg stood from his spot on the floor where he’d been patiently awaiting reentry and headed back onto the porch outside. He had heard enough of the conversation to be concerned, but wasn’t sure exactly how to fix it.

Dipper was reading something on his phone when Greg stepped out looking uncharacteristically pensive. Curious, he set the device down and asked what was wrong.

“I’m worried my brother is sad,” he answered earnestly. Dipper couldn’t imagine why Wirt would be sad, but Greg answered his question before he’d even asked. “I think he’s afraid you don’t like him.”

“Of course I like him,” Dipper said, brows furrowed.

“What do you think about my brother?” Greg asked.

The question caught him off guard. He looked around for a moment, then said, “Well, uh, he’s great. I dunno. I guess that’s what I think?”

“I mean seriously.” Greg gave him a look that made him appear older than he was, and suddenly Dipper felt compelled to answer truthfully.

“I think he’s amazing, Greg. He tells me about all the things he’s accomplished and all of his hobbies and I could just listen to him talk all day, you know?” Before he could think better of it, Dipper prattled on, looking somewhere in the distance now and talking with his hands. “He’s so poetic and, like…wow. He’s so funny and I know he doesn’t think he is, but he totally is. The first time I met him I couldn’t believe he was real. We had so much in common, but he’s just…so much _more_ than I am. He’s everything I could ever hope to be.” His concluding sigh may or may not have been a little wistful. “That’s what I think.”

Greg hummed contemplatively, scuffing the heel of his shoe against the wood beneath him. Offhandedly (or perhaps more calculated than he let on), he said, “He writes poems about you.”

Dipper’s expression changed. “Seriously?”

Greg nodded, looking pleased with himself but making a point not to look Dipper in the eye. “Mmhm. He talks about how you laugh and how he likes your hair. He thinks you’re really smart.”

“Yeah?” Dipper rubbed the back of his neck. “Anything else?”

“I dunno, but you can ask him yourself ‘cause here he comes.”

Dipper hopped to his feet and jerked his head around in time to see Wirt and Mabel descending the stairs, each of them with a little plastic bag in hand. The moment they hit the bottom step Mabel was going on excitedly about the date she was planning.

“Wirt,” Dipper started, “didn’t you tell her you don’t have a crush on her dumb friends?” He regarded his sister with sudden irritation. “Mabel, you can’t just go and plan dates for people who—” Here, Mabel shushed him.

“It’s gonna be awesome, bro-bro. Just wait.”

Wirt smiled bashfully at him and verbally offered his agreement before the two of them disappeared around the corner of the Shack. Dipper stared forlornly at the space they’d just been occupying. “He does want to go on a date?”

“Yep, I heard them talking about it,” Greg answered cheerily.

“I didn’t think he liked Mabel’s friends like that.”

After a shrug and a measured pause, Greg startled him with an out-of-the-blue question. “You love my brother, don’t you?”

Dipper felt his blood pressure spike. It had always been in the back of his mind, but he’d never really considered the L-word. Panicked, he spun to face Greg, eyes wide. “Oh god, I do. Greg, I do. What do I do?”

Animatedly throwing his hands into the air, Greg exclaimed, “Crash the date like a wedding! Run in and say ‘I object!’ and confess your love!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dipper said, sounded frazzled and winded.

“Run! Hurry!” Greg crowed.

“O-okay!” Caught up in the moment, Dipper went with it. He rushed around the corner, feeling a little out of his element, and almost ran straight into Wirt, whom Mabel had just forcefully pushed in that direction. After nearly tripping over himself in his abrupt halt, Dipper realized that the other was only a foot away from him, armed with a bouquet of fake flowers and a folded-up note. “I, um,” he started, then shook his head to focus it. “I have something to tell you.”

“I’ve got something to tell you too,” Wirt said, words tumbling over each other in a rush. Almost robotically, he extended his arm and held the flowers out to Dipper, looking at him with a flushed face and tightly-knitted brows.

They were both deathly quiet for a few long seconds. Cautiously, Dipper took the bouquet from him and blinked owlishly. “Huh?” he said intelligently.

Wirt cleared his throat. “Okay, so, I’m really glad you’re here. Like, I know we’ve been video-chatting and everything but over a period of months I sorta started thinking that I kind of like you a lot.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt and handed Dipper the note with a shaking hand. “And since I was thinking it, I wrote it down for you in this dumb poem.”

Still a little dazed, Dipper tucked the bouquet into the crook of his arm and slowly unfolded the paper, revealing a paragraph of gibberish penciled in evident haste. “It’s a cryptogram,” Wirt explained. “You’ll have to decipher it later. I’m super sorry about that but I thought, y’know, since you like that kind of stuff that it might be fun.” Wirt finally managed to meet his eyes and offered him a sheepish smile.

Dipper felt a thrill chase through his entire body. “Thank you,” he said, almost a little breathlessly. “I like you too. I didn’t think…” He didn’t get to finish before Wirt took a tentative step closer.

“This might be kinda dumb but can I kiss you?”

Dipper’s frigidness thawed with a blossoming grin. “You can definitely kiss me.”

It took Wirt a second to collect himself, but he’d already come this far and he wasn’t planning on ruining it. With an embarrassing degree of boyish clumsiness, he pressed his lips to Dipper’s, initiating the first of many kisses to come.

They could’ve stared at each other with goofy smiles forever if Mabel hadn’t run up and assaulted them with a hug. “Congratulations!” she cried.

Greg joined her seconds later, sending all of them toppling to the grass in a tangled heap. Dipper could barely breathe with how hard he was laughing, and the sentiment quickly spread to the rest of them.

“You’re welcome,” Mabel declared once she’d caught her breath, “for another match made.”


End file.
